Michael Linden and Michael Ettlinger provide us today with a handy chart of all the deficit reduction we've implemented over the past couple of years. In all, we've reduced spending by $1.8 trillion and increased taxes by $600 billion, for a total of $2.4 trillion. More details here. This may not be the grand bargain of Beltway dreams, but it's pretty good progress in a short period of time.

And three-quarters of it has been from spending cuts. If you're wondering why President Obama thinks the sequestration negotiations should include a balance of both spending reductions and tax increases, now you know.

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Kevin Drum

Political Blogger

Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. RSS | Twitter